Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra[b] (Spanish pronunciation: [miˈɣel ðe θerˈβantes saˈβeðɾa] in modern Spanish; October 9, 1547 – April 23, 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel by many,[1] is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all of literature.[2] His influence on the Spanish language has been so great, that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes (The language of Cervantes).[3] He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios the Prince of Wits.

Cervantes, born at Alcalá de Henares, was the fourth of seven children of Rodrigo de Cervantes, a surgeon born at Alcalá de Henares in a family whose origins may have been of the minor gentry, and wife, married in 1543, Leonor de Cortinas, who died on October 19, 1593. The family moved from town to town, and little is known of Cervantes's early years. In 1569, Cervantes moved to Italy, where he entered as valet into the service of Giulio Acquaviva, a wealthy priest who was elevated to cardinal the next year. By then Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Algerian pirates. He was ransomed by his captors and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid.

In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel, La Galatea. Because of financial problems, Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597 discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605 he was in Valladolid, just when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quijote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer; he published the Exemplary Novels (Novelas ejemplares) in 1613, the Journey to Parnassus in 1614, and in 1615, the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes noted that, "Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written.

Jorge Isaacs

Jorge Isaacs Ferrer (1 April 1837–April 17, 1895) was a Colombian writer, politician and soldier. His only novel, María, became one of the most notable works of the Romantic movement in Spanish literature.

His father was George Henry Isaacs, an English Jew originally from Jamaica. He first settled in Chocó, Colombia, where he made a fortune from gold mining and trade with Jamaica. He then moved to Cali where he converted to Christianity, obtained Colombian citizenship and married Manuela Ferrer Scarpetta, daughter of a Spanish Navy officer. He also owned two haciendas near Cali, called "La Manuelita" and "El Paraíso" the latter would provide the setting for María. "El Paraiso" has been preserved as a museum, with emphasis upon its relation to the novel.

Jorge Isaacs was born in Cali in 1837. Little is known about his childhood, but in some of his poems Isaacs portrays the Valley of the Cauca as an idyllic place where he spent his most of it. He was first educated in Cali, then in Popayán and, finally, in Bogotá between 1848 and 1852.

Isaacs returned to Cali in 1852 without finishing his baccalaureate studies. In 1854 he fought for seven months in the Cauca Campaign against the dictatorship of General José María Melo. In 1856 Isaacs married Felisa González Umaña, who was fourteen years-old at the time and with whom he had many children.

During the time of the civil wars his family went through a period of economic hardship. Isaacs tried unsuccessfully to become a merchant as his father. He then turned to literature and wrote his first poems between 1859 and 1860. During that time he also wrote several dramas of historical theme. Isaacs took arms again in 1860, this time against General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, and saw action in the Battle of Manizales during the Colombian Civil War (1860-1862). In 1861 Isaacs' father died; when the war ended Isaacs returned to Cali to take over the administration of his father's businesses, but he found them deeply in debt. This forced him to sell two of his father's haciendas "La Rita" and "La Manuelita".

Isaacs' economic hardship took him back to Bogotá, where he found that his literary efforts were being well received. The members of the rea der's club "El Mosaico" offered to publish his poems after Isaacs read them in one of their sessions. This compilation was published under the name Poesías in 1864. That year Isaacs took a job as the supervisor of the construction of a horse-path between Buenaventura and Cali and started to write María. Around that time he also fell ill with malaria.

When María was published in 1867 it became an immediate success both in Colombia and in other Latin American countries. As a consequence Isaacs became a well-known personality in Colombia and his newly-found fame allowed him to start a career as journalist and politician. As a journalist he directed the newspaper La República, of moderate conservative tendencies, in which he also published some articles. As a politician he first joined the Conservative Party, but later switched to the Radical Party. In 1870 he was sent to Chile as consul general.

On his return to Colombia he was actively involved in the politics of Valle del Cauca, which he represented in the Colombian Congress, and in 1876 he fought in yet another civil war. However his political career ended in 1879 after an incident where he proclaimed himself political and military leader of Antioquia in response to a conservative revolt.

After his retirement from politics Isaacs published in 1881 the first canto of the poem Saulo, although he was never able to complete it. He also explored the Magdalena Department, in the north of Colombia, where he found important coal and oil deposits. Isaacs spent the last years of his life in the city of Ibagué in Tolima where was planning to write a historical novel. He died of malaria on April 17, 1895.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, also known as Gabo (born March 6, 1927[1] in Aracataca, Colombia) is a Colombian novelist, journalist, editor, publisher, political activist, and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. García Márquez has lived mostly in Mexico and Europe and currently spends much of his time in Mexico City. Widely credited with introducing the global public to magical realism, he has secured both significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success. Many people hold that García Márquez ranks alongside his co-writers of the Latin American Boom, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Miguel Angel Asturias, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortázar as one of the world's greatest 20th-century authors.

Gabriel García Márquez is the father of television and film director Rodrigo Garcia.

Ismael Camacho Arango

Doctor Ismael camacho Arango was born in Lebrija, Colombia in 1926. He got his degree of medicine in the universidad nacional de Bogota in 1952.

His literary career started when he won a short story competition in 1967. He wrote his book siete minutos in 1971.

The novel is a future vision of our industrialist society and of the citizens who only think of having money. The day will come when people will only worry about themselves.

Laugh and cry with the characters and adventures the author describes in this book full of morbid humour, where he was the master.

Dr. Ismael Camacho died in Palmira, Colombia in 1995.